Crafting a light bulb: Are you writing a novel or a manifesto?

A few years ago, I was talking to a friend and a light bulb landed in my lap. Not a real one – that would have been weird – but an idea I couldn’t ignore. It was, a premise for the book I’m writing, whole as a nut.

The idea didn’t magically appear. It came after years of unearthing what on the surface seemed to be nothing at all. Until one day I understood a situation I could not ignore, asking to be written.

Here’s a thing: Sitting with an idea is beautiful. Crafting it into a tale is something else.

At the time, I was passionate for people to know what I thought about my subject. So much so that having laboured for months on the first draft, I realised my book – all 60,000 words of it – was in fact a lecture.